


Price of Love

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Fatal STD, Gen, Non-Consensual Sex For Favors, Non-Graphic Sex, Prison camp, Prostitution for Medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 04:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Sometimes love for someone makes unspeakable sacrifices seem reasonable.And sometimes the consequences of those sacrifices are permanent. (Interpretation: Ending does not fit classic definition of "Happy".)





	Price of Love

 

There are questions you never expect to face.

Obi-Wan certainly never imagined he would be trapped on a quarantined planet, locked away in a prison camp, robbed of his Force abilities and starved to the point where he could no longer defend any of the people here.

He certainly never anticipated he would be selling his body to bribe the cruel guards to give him the medicine he needed to save his nine-year-old Padawan's life.

But his face was being ground mercilessly into the stucko wall, his body brutally taken.

He hated himself for not fighting back. For what he saw as cowardice.

But when he limped back to the tiny metal shelf where Anakin lay wasting away, cradled his head tenderly and held his thin shoulders up so Obi-Wan could try to coax the fevered throat to swallow without choking, silently begging the flickering life to stay just one more day...

He knew he would be back here again tomorrow.

He was never going to forget begging these men for mercy for his child.

Would never forget their callous lack of care.

Would never,  _ ever  _ forget the moment they promised him the chance to save Anakin's life if he whored himself out to them.

Would never escape the moment he agreed.

So he stumbled back to his Padawan, half-convinced he deserved the tears in his hands, face, back, ass.

 

* * *

 

Anakin lived.

Though weak, he could sit up on his own, and Obi-Wan no longer returned to the guard station.

He saw the other prisoners sneer at him still. Knew they despised him for selling himself.

_ None of you can think less of me than I think of myself. _

But none of it mattered. Not their opinion, not his own opinion of himself— all that mattered was protecting Anakin until rescue or escape presented itself.

Everything else was just going to have to wait.

Anakin came first.

Always.

Anakin scrunched himself up into a tiny ball, insisting he wanted Obi-Wan to sit beside him.

The older Jedi could not refuse his request.

Anakin leaned against his shoulder, still worn out by the smallest of efforts.

_ But alive. He's alive. _

And Obi-Wan would endure anything to keep him safe.

They watched the people walking by, Anakin offering up single-sentence commentary as they went.

Obi-Wan wrapped an arm around him, longed for the dawning of hope, and clung to the thin voice emerging from a hollow face and form.

“ _ Some  _ of them trade sex with the guards for  _ favors. _ ” Anakin sounded disgusted. “They let themselves be  _ slaves. _ ”

Obi-Wan's heart stopped.

“It can be easy,” he murmured, “to judge another's actions from the outside. But we don't know what is happening within them. They may have reasons that are incomprehensible to us.”

“Master, I know you don't like judging people and you want to understand everybody, but some people have no self respect.”

Obi-Wan held him close and rubbed his shoulder. “I see all these people suffering and without hope. They cope however they can. Not everyone is given the same measure of strength, Anakin. What might seem simple to you might be a desperate struggle for another, just as something easy for someone else doesn't mean you are unworthy because you struggle to the point of tears to conquer that very thing. We can only fight with what we have to give, and some people have very little left. Compassion has more chance of healing than revulsion, and if we care more about ourselves looking good than about their well-being...”

“That's gross too?”  
“Which is more sad, Anakin? A person losing themself, losing their battle, or someone mistaking us for them?”

“It's pride, isn't it. That makes us want to let people know we're better than other people.”

“No one wants to be accused of something they did not do. But sometimes that desire puts walls between ourselves and the people who need our help the most. We fear that if we stand too close to them, we'll be mistaken for them. But people are more important than our reputations, Anakin.”

“Because we know who we are. And the people who love us know who we are, and no one else matters.”

He'd been listening. It sent warmth through Obi-Wan's heart even as his soul chilled to the point of inner death.

_ I know what I am. _

_I am weak._

_I have failed._

_But I will not give in as long as I'm the only one standing between this boy and harm._

 

* * *

 

“It's a fluid-contact disease.”

So here it was.  _ My punishment catching up to me. _

“What happened, those seven months in that camp?”  
“We had cuts on our hands almost all the time. And our feet. There was always mud, and so many people bleeding into it. I'm not surprised I caught something.”

Bant gave a single nod. “I wish you trusted me enough to simply say you don't want to talk about it.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Bant's smile was sad. “I can't heal you, my friend. And research science is a good twenty years out from a viable cure. Anakin is going to have to deal with losing his master.”

Obi-Wan looked away, his heart breaking for his Padawan. He knew what it was to watch a parent die.

“I want you to get your head in a better place. I don't care if you insist on doing it by yourself, or if you take advantage of the card I'm sending home with you containing the information of the Mind Healer I see. You know what happened to me eight years ago. But if you go to see her or don't, Obi-Wan, I need you to make Anakin's last months with you something he can treasure. So I need your head in a better place than it is now.”  
“Bant—”

“He deserves it, Obi-Wan. He loves you with all his heart, and if you'd had one more year with Qui-Gon—? Or _I_ had one more with Tahl?”

Obi-Wan's shoulders sagged. “Bant...”  
“Make these last months count, Obi-Wan. When you die, it will be over for you. The suffering, the mind torture. The self-hate. All those things bearing you down, you will be free of. The one who's going to have to live with all of this is Anakin. Make it as easy for him as you can. Please. Let him feel precious for as long as you have, and don't worry about  _ deserving  _ to be the one he adores. That love won't shift. So it's time for you to step up, be a parent, and love him back.”

“I do. So much.” His voice broke and he hated how weak it sounded. The abnormal trembling in his hand and burning in his lungs, the symptoms that had driven him to this examination in the first place, struck again, crueler this time.

“Make sure he feels it. And for the love of the Force, don't lie to him, so that when he looks back on this time it's poisoned by the fact that you robbed him of the knowledge this was his last chance to be with you.”

“It will steal his smile,” Obi-Wan choked.

Bant leaned forward, eyes gentle in sympathy. “He deserves to know. And these last months are about him, Obi-Wan.”

Now that,  _ that  _ he could make sense of.

_ What has happened to me is meaningless. _

He could get his head back in the game.

For Anakin.

“Obi-Wan, if you do not tell Anakin yourself within two days standard, I will tell him. You have no right to potentially destroy his relationship with you by lying to him about something so important. Not when you won't have to live to bear the consequences, but he  _ will. _ ”

Obi-Wan wanted to fight back, but knew she meant what she said.

He also knew she was  _ right. _

_And this time, I won't be a coward._

He gave her a wan smile, slid from the table, and slowly walked from the room, having to pay special attention to make his legs function the way they should.

He missed the tears that fled from Bant's eyes as she watched him go.

Missed the tears in the eyes of the rest of the Jedi he passed in the halls during the next several days.

Didn't know Mace Windu had launched into an investigation, trying to discover  _ who  _ had harmed Obi-Wan, a hunt that would not be stilled.

All that mattered to Obi-Wan was the child in his arms, weeping into his shoulder, terrified of losing his master.

All that mattered was making this as easy for him as possible.

 


End file.
